WILL LOWERING CLASS SIZES IMPROVE YOUR CHILD’S EDUCATION? MAYBE NOT

Here’s a modern myth: lowering class sizes will improve your child’s education.  This is supported by the American Federation of Teachers.  The A.F.T., one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, quotes a research study in support of lowering class sizes:

http://www.aft.org/topics/classsize/index.htm

 

Reducing class sizes, the A.F.T. claims, will give teachers a chance to know the children better and will reduce the number of disciplinary problems.  The problem is, there’s no guarantee that the teachers will make the effort to know individual children better; and many teachers are lousy classroom managers.  There’d be pandemonium in their classrooms even if the class size was reduced to ten.

 

Now I’m not opposed to reducing class sizes, but this alone won’t improve children’s education.  And the STAR Project, the study quoted on the A.F.T.’s website is flawed.  There have been many criticisms of its imperfections.  Among these is the fact that some parents put extreme pressure on the district to place their kids in the smaller classes.  The teachers who conducted these classes were often those considered strongest by the district.  Additionally, class sizes seem to matter less beyond the third grade.  Some educators recommend (rightly, I believe) that the quality of instruction is as important as the size of the class.  Here’s where the canker gnaws. 

 

The A.F.T., while supporting smaller classes, has also elected Randi Weingarten, an apologist for incompetent teachers, as its new president.  In her last job as president of the U.F.T., New York City’s union, Weingarten staged mass demonstrations against the city when it tried to standardize the quality of instruction.  I’m not saying that New York’s Department of Education managed the changes well (they didn’t), but Weingarten’s response was telling.  “Let teachers teach!” she would stridently shout as demonstrators took up the chant.  “Let teachers teach,” was Weingarten’s clever way of demanding that accountability be rolled back. 

 

I personally heard Weingarten urge teachers to support Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid because: “We have to get rid of No Child Left Behind.”  NCLB, while flawed and poorly funded, is still our government’s greatest attempt to improve the quality of instruction nationwide.  Weingarten didn’t call for the government to refine NCLB.  She wanted it GONE.  Her job, along with improving teachers’ benefits is to shield them from accountability.  The A.F.T.’s demand that class sizes be reduced is a joke unless our nation also does the following:

 

Ø      Eliminate lifelong tenure

Ø      Develop nationwide guidelines for assessing teachers in each grade.

Ø      Develop national guidelines for due process: When should a teacher get fired?

Ø      Lower class sizes in grades K-3 and buy EVERY SCHOOL one of the well-researched reading programs.  Demand that teachers learn these programs well or be fired.

Ø      Lower class sizes in grades K-3 and buy EVERY SCHOOL one of the well-researched math programs.  Demand that teachers learn these programs well or be fired.

Ø      Require that every teacher spend longer hours learning these new programs, but pay them well for their time.

Ø      Pay for short term individualized tutoring FOR EVERY CHILD WHO NEEDS IT.

Ø      Buy every secondary school the best researched programs in reading and math.  Demand that teachers learn these programs well or be fired.

Ø      Require that every secondary-level teacher spend longer hours learning these new programs, but pay them well for their time.

Ø      Do not hire someone as a principal or assistant (vice) principal until they’ve spent a year, under close scrutiny, demonstrating their ability to teach using the reading and math programs their district has chosen. 

 

Teachers should be highly paid and receive incredible benefits packages, but they must prove their worth every year or be fired.  As long as education is held hostage by teachers’ unions, we’ll continue to hear a phrase that I’ve heard scores of times: “I have tenure; you can’t make me do this.”  As long as this is allowed to continue, lowering class sizes won’t mean a damn. 

SECRETARY SPELLINGS’ “GROWTH MODELS”

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is experimenting with a new and (potentially) promising model of accountability: the Growth Model.  Some states are experimenting with this model in order to meet the NCLB requirement that all children be proficient in reading and math by 2014.  What is the model?

 

Simply put, each child’s progress is tracked from year to year.  The idea is to assess whether individual kids’ skills are advancing, and to implement strategies for improving their skills if sufficient movement hasn’t occurred.  On paper, it’s a great idea.  I hope that some of the states that are piloting the model succeed and show the rest of us the way.

http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/growthmodel/index.html

 

I do, however, have concerns.  I’m most assuredly in favor of the Growth Model but I wouldn’t want to see the same results that I’ve seen, thus far, in my hometown: NYC.  This year, a Growth Model was implemented—sort of.  There was a big announcement in the media and the chancellor and mayor spent a lot of time before the cameras patting themselves on the back.  And then…

 

Those of us on the front lines discovered that the program wouldn’t come online on time in all schools.  The start-of-the year assessments never appeared.  In the high schools we received them at the end of the year: just a tad late. 

 

There was another problem.  Those who did have student data on the system couldn’t always retrieve it.  Why?  The system couldn’t handle the volume of individuals trying to retrieve data.  Try the system at off-peak hours, we were told.  4 AM might be a good time.  (You can’t make this stuff up.)

 

As always, the teachers’ union added to the problem:

 

United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said that the money might be better spent elsewhere. “You can lower a lot of class sizes with that money – or buy a lot of supplies,” she said.  

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/0316/news/017.html

 

Weingarten, a master at defending teacher mediocrity while appearing to support children, didn’t like the proposed system.  Of course she didn’t, because her real problem was that:

 

Some of the data may be used to evaluate Principals’ performance and to determine if Teachers get tenure.

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/0316/news/017.html

 

While the system has lots of glitches, if NYC or any of the states involved in Secretary Spellings’ pilot program succeed in developing an efficient Growth Model, teachers unions will have fewer excuses when defending incompetent teachers.

 

So while we’re experimenting with Growth Models, here are my concerns:

 

Ø      How will we ensure that these systems are developed and implemented in an efficient and cost effective manner?

 

Ø      If Growth Models are used to evaluate teachers and principals (a move I do not oppose) how can we ensure that we are measuring all teachers equally?  How can we factor-in differences in student populations when evaluating teachers, since research shows us that children from poor and transient environments consistently do worse than middle class kids?  And will we provide re-training for struggling teachers before we take the costly (though sometimes necessary) step of casting them adrift?

 

Ø      How can we ensure that the training of teachers and principals is sufficient?   

 

Ø      How can we ensure that school teams are given time and paid for the use of their time when they retrieve and analyze data?

 

Ø      If students are struggling, will the Growth Model then link them to well-researched, field-tested programs to improve their skills?  Will funding be made available to all schools across the country so that they can buy these programs? 

 

Ø      If individual tutoring is needed, will the money and manpower be available to provide it?

 

Ø      Will the nation be able to put a muzzle on the teachers unions as they balk at the increased level of accountability?

 

Unless these questions are addressed, the Growth Model of accountability will quickly degenerate into the latest costly and meaningless fad.  Time will tell which way it will go.  Meanwhile, I’m crossing my fingers.  If it’s managed well, it’s a great idea.